Of College Courses and Drownings
by the ketchup queen
Summary: So I wrote this story for an English project. A modern novelization of Hamlet. Ophelia, a college student, is sleeping with her married prof Hamlet. Warning: a few character changes to fit the setting!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I wrote this as an assignment for English class this year where we were supposed to make Hamlet into a novel. Enjoy! I most likely won't be finishing this and I can't believe there's a real clamor for Shakespeare fan fiction, but whatever. I thought it was a fun read.**

Hamlet rose from the bed and sought out his pants from their discarded place on the floor. Ophelia stirred beside him and rose drowsily from the sheets.

She watched him as he pulled on his pants, zipped them up and grabbed his coat from where it lay on her armchair—the coat his wife had given him. Hamlet glanced up and gave her a half-smile.

She knew what that damn smile meant, too. Ophelia was no idiot. She knew that that smile meant she was good enough in bed to fool around with behind his wife's back, but she just wasn't wife material. Plus, Gertrude had too much money for Hamlet to ever walk away from her. Ophelia was a dirt poor graduate student and she knew it. But she couldn't fail to hope that one day Hamlet would come to realize just how perfect they were together—just like her advisor, Polonius, always told her.

He told her he loved her once, you know. No, not Polonius. The man was about seventy years old with one bad eye and a crooked nose and was not the type of material that a girl like Ophelia—fair, beautiful, goddess-material—would fall for. Hamlet did. Or at least he had inferred it. And Ophelia refused to believe that he could keep his heart of stone for much longer. After all, even if Gertrude had money, he didn't love her. He loved Ophelia! That had to count for something, right?

After what seemed like hours of silence, Hamlet glanced up from his cell phone screen once he was done checking his messages. "I humbly thank you. Well…" he spoke while striding over to the door of her apartment, clearly eager to just leave their affair as it was and continue on with their weekly rituals.

"My lord, I have remembrances of yours/ That I have longed long to redeliver. I pray you now receive them," she said confidently enough. Upon seeing Hamlet's face, though, she wished she could take it all back. He was livid.

"No, not I. I never gave you aught," he refused while shaking his head slowly, his floppy hair falling into his eyes.

Well, Ophelia thought, there's no going back now. I might as well finish what I've started and at least get a straightforward answer while I'm at it.

"My honored lord, you know right well you did, /And with them words of so sweet breath composed/ As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost, /Take these again, for to the noble mind/ Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. / There, my lord," she finished defiantly from her seated position on the bed. She jutted her chin out daring him to challenge her.

Pulling his keys from his pants pocket, Hamlet chuckled, "Ha, ha, are you honest?"

Puzzled by his words, she inquired timidly, "My lord?"

Hamlet sighed in frustration and repeated, "Are you fair?"

"What means your lordship?" Ophelia inquired; truly confused that he might ask her if she was speaking in jest. Of course she wasn't—this was an important matter!

Rolling his eyes, her lover spoke in a slow tone, his teaching tone, as though she were an imbecile freshman. "That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty."

Now Ophelia was just plain annoyed. Did he want her to forget the whole moment of his declaration? Impossible!

"Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?" she questioned impertinently.

Hamlet smiled nostalgically. "Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof." Then he sighed again in regret and admitted, "I did love you once."

Emboldened by his admission, Ophelia continued, "Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so."

Hamlet shook his head, disappointed. "You should not have believed me," he confessed, "For virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it." He turned towards the door, ready to leave, reaching for the handle, when he stopped. He curled his hand into a fist, mere inches above the handle and hanging his head, declared, "I love you not."

Ophelia would not let the tears fall from her eyes just yet. She spoke, her voice wobbly at first, but growing stronger as she said, "I was the more deceived."

Hamlet raised his head as she spoke and stared determinately at the door. Putting as much scorn and annoyance as he possibly could into his voice he told her, "Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not bourne me: I am very proud," he conceded, "Revengeful, ambitious, with more offenses at my beck than I have thoughts to them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?"

It was as though he had slapped her across the face. He was telling her, in as few words, that if this was the way she was going to act—blowing things out of proportion, taking the littlest sentiment to heart and asking him to leave his wife—he was gone; he didn't have enough time in the day to deal with his mistress's troubles. And the father comment? Totally out of line! He knew her father was home-bound after he'd had that awful car accident. That was the reason they had gotten together in the first place.

After poor Laertes was hospitalized and in the intensive care unit for months, Ophelia's grades had started to drop and she was in danger of failing her English Lit class. One day following the rest of the students out, Hamlet had called her aside and asked her what was wrong. She had obliged, telling him everything about her father and how much he meant to her, etc. She'd cried, he'd hugged her and somehow they had ended up in a passionate embrace, kissing and the whole she-bang. And one thing had led to another and somehow they'd started this turbulent affair, which, two years later, had apparently gone nowhere except straight towards disaster.

"At home, my lord," she replied coldly.

"Let the doors be shut upon him that may play the fool nowhere but in 's own house." Grabbing the doorknob, yanking her door open, and stepping out into the hallway, he called over his shoulder, "Farewell," and snapped the door shut behind him.

At that moment Ophelia finally let the tears fall, but not for long. Hamlet wasn't worth crying over, that arrogant ass of a man. She refused to lament over the loss because really, what had she lost? A warm bed once a week? She'd buy a dog and have it all year long. And that went for the sloppy, wet kisses as well. Really, when she thought about it, Hamlet wasn't the perfect man she'd been searching for at all. She was over his once and for all. And it only took her three minutes.


	2. Chapter 2

Ophelia was just plain old confused. She thought she and Hamlet had ended their relationship, or whatever you would call their non-relationship, a few days ago. But apparently not.

She hung up her cell phone by snapping the lid shut, as she gazed unseeingly ahead. Why had Hamlet called her to ask her out? They never went out. Their relationship was confined strictly to the bedroom—her bedroom, to be precise.

She sighed. _I guess I should get ready for the play then._ Hamlet wanted to meet her there and was sending over her ticket by messenger.

After showering, doing her hair, applying her makeup and wearing that dress that she knew Hamlet liked, Ophelia was ready to go. She arrived at the theater and sat, playing with her playbill for about 20 minutes. Hamlet showed up late with his entire retinue—wife, boss, and university president in tow.

Settling into their seats, Gertrude exclaimed, "Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me."

But in response, Hamlet only shook his head and replied calmly, "No, good [wife]. Here's metal more attractive." And he walked over to Ophelia and sat next to her.

Whatever could he mean by such a public display! Displeasing his wife and showing everyone who he was more smitten with! Terrible! Ophelia blushed and tried to persuade Hamlet to go sit by his wife again, but to no avail. She was silenced further by Polonius.

"Oh, ho! Do you mark that?"

His comment was directed to the head of the history department, Dr. Claudius, but Mr. Polonius, being wholly unqualified for the position of university president and being completely socially inept, had failed to lower his voice.

Hamlet turned to her.

"Lady, shall I lie in your lap?"

_Holy crap! What the hell is happening to you Hamlet! Lie in my lap?!_ _You're your wife watching?! _Ophelia's thoughts raced through her head. _I thought we were done with all this nonsense!_

"No, my lord," she responded with as much serenity as she could manage with thoughts behaving like NASCAR racers going round and round one single track.

Hamlet rolled his eyes at her coldness. "I mean, my head upon your lap?"

"Ay, my lord." She knew what he meant! She looked at the stage, praying for the show to start promptly or she would go mad from such conversations.

"Do you think I meant country matters?" Hamlet inquired.

She rolled her eyes and mocked him. "I think nothing, my lord."

Hamlet seemed to not notice her comment and continued on his train of thought, resting his hand unconsciously on the armrest, where her hands were currently positioned. Gertrude seemed to titter wildly behind them.

Mildly amused, Hamlet continued, "That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs."

Ophelia was concerned. Not to mention that she had kind of tuned out Hamlet's strange comments and was puzzling over the meaning of all this. Naturally, she had missed his last insane statement.

"What is, my lord?"

Hamlet seemed reticent once she had drawn his attention once again. "Nothing," he answered simply.

Having decided to steer the conversation away from things unmentionable in public, Ophelia commented, "You are merry, my lord."

Bemused, Hamlet questioned, "Who, I?"

"Ay, my lord."

Hamlet's response was quite revealing. "O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully my [wife] looks, and [her lover] died within 's two hours."

Oh, so now the real reason for this whole meeting was revealed. It wasn't a date—it was a chance to bring his wife's indiscretions into light and to show her that two could play that game. Only Ophelia didn't want to play that game at all. She was through with games. So she decided to set him straight on this.

"Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord," was her comeback.

"So long?" Hamlet replied, bemused. "Nay, then, let the devil wear black for I'll have a suit of stables. O heavens, die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year. But, by'r Lady, he must build churches, then, or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with he hobby-horse, whose epitaph is 'For oh, for oh, the hobby-horse is forgot.'"

_What? Why all this babbling? And what should Hamlet care that his wife's lover was dead? Other than the fact that she had just started another affair with his predecessor, Dr. Claudius, the new head of the history department. _

The lights dimmed and the curtain rose, indicating the start of the show. A man and a woman appeared on stage, with a man in the background, head turned away, unseeing. The man and woman embraced lovingly, and then, when the other man cleared his throat, the woman kissed the embraced man and put her finger on his lips to silence him as she ran to the other man, took his hand, and walked off stage. The first man fell asleep at his desk.

Next another man entered the stage dressed all in black as an assassin. He tip-toed across the stage to the desk, dripped something into the man's coffee mug, stirred it, then tip-toed off stage.

The sleeping man awoke, sipped his coffee, and then almost immediately slumped over in his chair, dead. The body is carried off and then a funeral procession is made across the stage, the woman sobbing uncontrollably, but her husband no where to be seen. Then, the killer woos the woman and she begins an affair with him.

Ophelia was puzzled by such a strange play—it almost imitated life in some aspects. At least, Hamlet's life.

"What means this, my lord?"

Hamlet responded with a mischievous grin and replied, "Marry, this is miching mallecho. It means mischief."

"Belike this show imports the argument of the play," Ophelia pondered.

Hamlet nudged her gently and inclined his head towards the stage, where a man was entering. "We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all."

"Will he tell us what this show meant?"

"Ay, or any show that you will show him. Be not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means."

"You are naught, you are naught. I'll mark the play," she said turning back towards the stage.

The Prologue was performed, the play started, and Ophelia watched as the acts progressed. With a few exclamations from Hamlet and a lot of shuffling and restless shifting coming from the seats behind them, Ophelia was soon able to comprehend the play and its meaning.

After a few lines, Hamlet turned to Gertrude. "Madam, how like you this play?"

She replied uncertainly, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Hamlet smirked. "Oh, but she'll keep her word."

Claudius butted into the conversation then, asking, "Have you heard her argument? Is there no offense in 't?"

Hamlet waved him off, saying, "No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest. No offense i' th' world."

"What do you call the play?" the doctor wondered aloud.

"'The Mousetrap.' Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke's name, his wife Baptista. You shall see anon. 'Tis a knavish piece of work, but what of that? Your Majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the galled jade wince; our withers are unwrung," at which point he subtly took Ophelia's hand in his own.

Turning to whisper in her ear, he explained, "This is one Lucianus, nephew to the [department chair]."

Ophelia smiled at him and complimented, "You are as good as a chorus, my lord."

Hamlet boasted, "I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying."

Ophelia was both impressed and smitten, "You are keen, my lord, you are keen."

Continuing his flirting, Hamlet teased, "It would coast you a groaning to take off mine edge."

"Still better and worse," was her response.

Hamlet smiled and turned back towards the stage, urging, "So you mis-take your husbands.—Begin, murderer. Pox, leave thy damnable faces and begin. Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge."

Lucianus finished his piece and actions and Hamlet explained, "He poisons him i' th' [office] for his [department]. His name's Gonzago. The story is extant and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's [mistress]."

At this moment, Dr. Claudius rose from his seat.

Ophelia observed this and commented, "The doctor rises."

Hamlet smirked and sarcastically asked, "What, frighted with false fire?"

Ophelia gave him a quizzical look and turned in her seat to ask the president, "How fares my lord?" nodding towards the standing Ph.D.

People behind their party started to twitter with impatience at the man's prone form and their inability to see the action onstage.

Polonius responded, "Give o'er the play."

The history department chair, shouted impatiently, "Give me some light. Away!"

Always the good little puppy… er, boss… Polonius declared, "Lights, lights, lights!"

Hamlet smiled at the man's departure—with his wife no less!—and kissed Ophelia square on the lips, confusing her immensely. Then he rose from his seat, apologized for having to take her home so soon, took her hand and let her to the exit.


End file.
